It was not too long ago that cell phones became a common household item. In those days, cell phones were mainly used for making phone calls and storing contact information. In the last few years, the rapid advancement in mobile computing platforms gave birth to a new breed of phones, namely “smartphones”. These phones pack many different features ranging from having the ability to browse the Internet to being able to play multiplayer games. The growth of features is not limited to consumer “smartphones”; mobile devices for use in business environments have benefited from the advancement in mobile computing, as compact and powerful handheld devices have replaced bulky equipments while providing more advanced features. Such features include, for example, Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) to manage inventory electronically, Wi-Fi™ to enable the exchange of information wirelessly, and Bluetooth™ to provide the handheld users unobstructed movement. These mobile devices render businesses more efficient, competitive and environmentally friendly.
With ever increasing demand for more advanced features in compact form, power requirements for mobile devices have increased as well. However, battery technologies have not kept pace with the power requirements of modern mobile devices. Thus, mobile device manufacturers are looking for ways to conserve power. At first, laptop manufacturers provided two modes of operation: AC power and battery power. The first mode enabled all the components of the laptop to be fully functional when the laptop was plugged into a wall socket. The second mode significantly restricted the mode of operation of a laptop to maximize battery life when the laptop was not plugged into a wall socket.
More recently, a consortium of software and hardware developers have developed a standard known as Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) to provide an open-standard for managing and configuring power of a device. This movement has allowed software and hardware developers to control the power states of each ACPI-compliant hardware. For example, in Microsoft™ Windows™, users are able to create different “power profiles” that suit different environment settings. Through these power profiles, a user is able to vary the power requirement of a device in different settings. For example, a user using a mobile device (e.g. a laptop) at home is typically plugged into a wall socket or is very close to a wall socket. Thus, the user is less concerned about power optimization. However, if the same user is on a bus commuting to work, power optimization is a big concern since a wall socket is not available. In Windows™, to differentiate between these two environments, the user is able to create different power profiles that vary the power usage of each components of the mobile device. By creating a profile for “home” and another for “commute”, the user is able to vary the power requirements for each settings. However, existing power management schemes rely on the user to recognize the different power needs and set them as required. Referring back to our example, the user would have to manually set the power profiles to “home” when the user arrives at home and change to “commute” when the user leaves home. Currently, there is no method of managing power profiles autonomously once specific parameters are defined. Therefore, there is a need for a power management technique that is managed autonomously once specific parameters are set by the user.